


Wanderlust

by pyrimidine



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrimidine/pseuds/pyrimidine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1950s AU (though you can't really tell...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wanderlust

Brad's been gone for the past few days, on some trip to New York to work out the last of his business details so he can seal the deal and wash his hands of it completely. There have been a handful of these trips ever since they arrived in California, and Ray's never quite convinced that Brad'll be coming back. At least he isn't compensating for that by being a complete asshole anymore. He just clamps down on it, tells himself he's being stupid as he pretends not to watch Brad pack, as he pushes their noses together and then bites him on the collarbone as a goodbye.   
  
At night, he goes to bars, says crude things to all the girls, and ends up chain-smoking outside before scrounging up enough change to call Walt and beg him for a ride home at some ungodly hour. He's never woken up early enough for sunrise but occasionally he'll stay up late enough for it instead. That's what he's been doing without Brad around to herd him into bed at a decent time so they can wake up to do 'work' and be 'productive' and make enough to 'eat' and all that.   
  
The fog's taking a long time to burn off this morning. He squints out at the water, which looks almost a light grey as the sun rises white-hot over the horizon. Strangely enough, looking at bright light makes him drowsy and he ends up falling asleep right there on the beach. It's not too bad with the breeze and all, and luckily he jerks awake before any sunburn can set in. A few passing couples are giving him sidelong glances. Ray can't really blame them, what with the dirty clothes and the bottle half-buried in the sand, but he just tips his sunglasses on and stares at them.   
  
Around noon, he stumbles back to the shop and halfheartedly starts some repairs. He ends up working on two bikes and a car all at once, interrupted only by a phone call -- Reporter, with the typewriter still going in the background, begging him to deliver a pack of paper to his fucking doorstep -- and a few cigarette breaks. In the end, he almost finishes the car and makes no progress with the bikes, save for moving a few wrenches around here and there. There's grease all over his hands, pinched under his nails and into the lines of his palm.   
  
He strips off his clothes as he walks up the stairs and into the unit above the shop. At the door, he looks around and tries to see the place through the eyes of someone who's been away for a bit. There's old dishes piled up in the sink, a mound of spaghetti slopped onto the sofa cushions and trailing onto the floor, and the carpet is barely visible from underneath the crap that Ray had tried to unpack during one of his caffeine binges but had gotten too jittery to actually finish doing.   
  
He contemplates actually trying to clean up, but in the end, everything's still a fucking mess by the time Brad walks through the door. Ray is standing in the middle of it all, wearing only underwear and eating the last of some dry oatmeal. Brad's eyes drift down to the soft pack of cigarettes tucked into the waistband of Ray's Hanes.   
  
"You got your arm back," is the first thing Ray says. A few stray pieces of oatmeal fall out of his mouth.   
  
Brad looks back up and moves his elbow in a circle. There's no more lump of gauze thickening his arm from under the clothing. "Good as new," he confirms. He's still in the suit, albeit without the tie, and with the top two buttons already undone. The briefcase gets dropped on the floor, the jacket comes off onto the sofa as he walks toward Ray, and the shirt gets shucked over a chairback.   
  
He noses at Ray's ear, exhales into saltwater-dried hair. His fingertips are resting on Ray's hipbones. "Hello," he says. "No welcome home party?"   
  
Ray taps the pack of cigarettes. "Right here, buddy. Smoke 'em if you got 'em."   
  
"That's what I came home for? I could be waist deep in New York hookers right now," Brad grumps, pulling away a little. He's walking backwards, taking Ray with him until they land on the couch.   
  
"Please," Ray scoffs. He straddles Brad's thighs and runs a hand over his hair, intending only to do it once but ends up doing it over and over. Brad just watches him silently. "There's nowhere you'd rather be than on this shitty couch, with a skivvies model like me on your lap." He shifts a bit to emphasize his point, then points to his own face. "A mug like this, Brad? You lucked out, big time."   
  
He grins, touches Brad's eyebrow, and then Brad is grabbing his wrist and pulling it to his side. "Come here," he says with a small, lopsided smile, one that's been making an appearance more often ever since they crossed west of the Mississippi. Ray likes it. It makes him do things, like lean in and kiss Brad solidly, squeezing the back of his neck and getting motor oil on his skin.   
  
Brad pauses. "What am I sitting on?"   
  
"Spaghetti," Ray answers right away.   
  
"If I guessed that you've been subsisting on beers and sauceless spaghetti for the past week, would I be correct?"   
  
"Who knows? Not like you're clairvoyant or anything, so you wouldn't." Ray shrugs.   
  
Brad still has that smile. Ray starts to get fidgety, so he slides off the couch and hops over some junk on the floor.   
  
"Where are you going?" Brad sighs, stretching out and craning his neck to look over the couch.   
  
"Figured I should put some pants on. Walt's coming over for dinner and he set some ground rules before agreeing to it."   
  
Brad hums and rises from the couch as well, reaching over to grab his jacket before straightening up again.   
  
At first, Ray thinks it to be a loose thread, trailing down the back of Brad's upper arm from the sleeve of his tee. He laughs, says, "You unkempt bastard," and grabs Brad's wrist, twisting it gently so he can pick the thread off. But when he swipes at it, it stays solid and unmoving against the pad of Ray's thumb. Brad whips his head around, inhaling sharply through his teeth as if he's just been scalded.   
  
"Ray," Brad begins, but Ray tightens his grip.   
  
He slides his hand up Brad's sleeve, pushing the material out of the way, caging the thready black line with careful fingers. There's no sign of the burn that Brad had claimed to be the reason for the gauze and the salves. Instead his skin is clean and smooth, interrupted only by a small, even-flowing script ending a few inches from his elbow; a simple line of penmanship that could have been lifted from a calligrapher's notebooks. Unobtrusive, unassuming, not announcing anything to the whole world like all the other tattoos he's seen, including his own. God, but he would have loved to see the tattoo artist's face when Brad had loomed over him and described what he'd wanted.   
  
"You said you burnt it on a tailpipe," Ray says dumbly. "What's it say? Why didn't you tell me? Where'd you get it? They better have been a clean place, Brad, I mean it, or I'll kill ya. What's it mean? Is it some sort of secretive code word thing that -- "   
  
"Ray," Brad cuts in. He waits until Ray meets his eyes, and then says, "It says, 'silence is golden'."   
  
Ray squints at it again. "That's not what it says."   
  
"In Latin. It says it in Latin."   
  
"Oh." Ray can finally make out the letters now that he knows they're not in English:  _silentium est aureum_ , he mouths slowly. "Huh. Why'd you choose that?"   
  
"Why not? I can't foresee a future where I don't tell you to shut the hell up all the time. I figured there's nothing more fitting," Brad says.   
  
Ray's eyes had drifted back down to the tattoo, so it takes him a while to put it together. He lets go and blinks up at Brad. Brad just stares back, impassive as usual.   
  
"You romantic bastard," Ray finally crows. It sounds funny because it feels like his heart is about to beat out of his stupid chest. He gives Brad a playful shove to the shoulders to cover it up. "You goddamn dumb romantic bastard. Geez, Brad. Want to wear my letterman jacket after school? They opened a new drive-in down by the shake shop, maybe we could go there and canoodle, hey."   
  
Brad doesn't say anything. Ray waits. Brad doesn't say anything.   
  
"Don't you fucking pull that Charlie Chaplin shit on me," Ray says a little wildly. Sometimes, out of the blue, it becomes clear just how well Brad knows him. Ray always feels thrown off by it.   
  
"Calm down."   
  
Ray closes his eyes and puffs air into his cheeks. "Okay, fine. But you're going to have to wait. I'm feeling a lot of stuff right now."   
  
"Good stuff," Brad prompts in an even voice, but it's still evident to Ray that it's a question.   
  
Ray cracks one eye open. "Of course, good stuff."   
  
"Okay. Then I can wait." And Brad does so patiently until Ray leans forward to rest his forehead against Brad's sternum.   
  
"I'm really glad you're back," is all he ends up saying, like that tattoo has some kind of crazy curse on it that's rubbing off on him, but he really can't come up with anything else. He feels Brad smile against his hair.   
  
"Are you going to put some pants on? Walt's probably going to be here any second. I'm sure you've scarred his vision enough for a lifetime," Brad reminds him.   
  
Ray makes an agreeable sort of noise, but he's slowly moving his fingers along Brad's arm, feeling the raised skin and imagining the ink underneath his fingertips. He keeps skimming over it lightly for who knows how long, and then something about Brad's posture changes, though Ray can't pinpoint exactly what it is. When he looks up, Brad's eyes are hooded, mouth slightly open. Ray's heart starts to speed up again, even after all this, after driving across the country, after sharing a bed for three months.   
  
He runs his thumb over it deliberately, one final time, and heads into the bedroom with Brad's footsteps echoing his own.


End file.
